Friday WTF: Bike Rack on a WHAT??

Great. He's super-rich AND athletic. Probably good looking, too.

Guest Comic!

Stumbled across this on the internets...

Sorry for poor quality, have to take what you can get 

Guest Blogger Edition: Frankenwheel

   Our friends over at The Beat Bike Blog have been busy working on creating new bikes out of old ones again. This project caught my eye as being a nice mixture of weird and clever.
 
   This guy got his hands on this vintage Mercier Special Tour de France, which as he points out, has a pretty cool name.

Mighty Mercier

He also had a 3 speed internal shifting 26" cruiser wheel he wanted to use. So, why not put them together? Here's why:

- Smaller back wheel will not allow brakes to reach the rim
- Smaller wheel will lower the BB, and increase the chance of the pedals hitting the ground
- Lower back end means a more slack steering angle, and less nimble handling.

   Not to be deterred, he set up a custom frame spacers. This is similar to the product featured a few weeks ago by RoadToPista.

Adaptor in action

  So the reason he did this was not to allow for a larger wheel, but to raise the bottom bracket and gain pedal clearance, Clarence. I'm not sure why he kept the reverse drop outs and not a track drop.

  At first I thought, "This is stupid." But the more I read the less stupid and more... silly it became. It sure addresses the main issue of  eating it because of clipping a pedal. Good job guys.

Parts You Never New Existed: Brake Spacers

   With all kinds of companies making frames, brakes, and wheels, it's no surprise that there are some challenges when it comes to making your brakes work smoothly. I recently stumbled across this product from Velosolo to help with rotor alignment:

Spacers in action

   Well, it turns out that in addition to fine tuning the spacing of your brake rotor, you can use them to adjust the position of a cog bolted to the brake rotor mount of a wheel.

Track cog installed

   You may recall I did this with the Iro a while back. I had to use some washers that I'd filed down to get the cog to fit right. Now that Velosolo is making these things, no more washer filing!

Friday WTF: Top Tuuuuube!

   You want top tubes?! How's this for a top tube!?!

Not enough top tube? How's this for a top tube?

STILL not enough top tube? How about this for a tube top?

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

   So we all have opinions about stuff, right? Well, the Angry Single Speeder over at MTBR sure has his own. Usually I like his reviews and occasionally, I love them. The other day he called out fat bike riders on having a narrow use and not shaving. He summed it up nicely with this quote:

"Fat bikes are like boats – it’s less expensive and more fun to make friends with somebody who owns one than to actually own one yourself."

A.S.S. in action (MTBR, photo)

   Jump over to BikeRumor, which I read a much as I can, and you see this article:  'Hate Fatbikes? You're doing it wrong.' This writer's opinion is that Fat Bikes have their use and everyone should see that and appreciate that change is not bad. He summed it up nicely with this quote:

"While not for everyone, fatbikes aren’t just a passing fad."

Can't do this on a regular bike (BikeRumor, photo)

   I think this user summed it up nicely in the comments on BikeRumor:

"Fat bikes are ok… They (sic) annoying people who ride them, not so much. Just ride it, I’m sick of hearing about how it changed your life."

   My 2 cents? If you are can go a few days without riding when it's snowing and there's not a lot of sand around, a fatbike isn't really necessary. But I do love a good old fashioned 'Open letter to...' argument! 

2014 CX Nationals!

   This last weekend the Cyclocross National Championships took place here in Boulder. What an exciting event! I was able to watch the Collegiate Div 1 and 2 races and the Jrs. No pro's sadly, but here are some awesome pics form the races:

   I overheard a couple guys mention that the Valmont run up was one of the longest in the country. Boom!

The run up

   This downhill is usually done in a a few switchbacks. Not this time - straight down they went. And down some went! There was a pretty sizable dip in the middle as well that was making things extra tricky.

The big hill from the top

From the bottom

   There was also a terrible ditch crossing, featured in another post. The exit had riders coming out and catching air, some against their will. Not Alex Ryan - this guy was putting on a show! (picture thanks to Bill Davis, who doesn't leave the ground like this unless he's secured his tray table and put his seat in the upright and locked position first.)

RAD (1986) eat your heart out

   Conclusion: It was a fantastic race and a great venue! 

Friday WTF: Vintage Fireman's Bike

   This WTF is more of an OMG WOW. Now that we're past the tween acronyms - check out this sweet bike!

Fire bicycle

   According to this article, they were (predictably) used to fight fires! Click the link to learn everything you ever wanted to know about these specialized machines!

DiamondBack Bikes Shuts Down BMX Team

   BMX post! Diamondback, a long time staple in BMX, is apparently pulling the plug on their factory BMX racing team. This is a bit of a shock since they're a group of talented riders and DB has been in the business since forever. BMX Plus tweet:

   What is worse is that one of their riders, Ben Hucke, commented on the The Come Up article :

   What a bummer for the riders to find out that their team might be shutting down through social media! Here's hoping that te DB riders will get picked up by some other teams!

Bolt on Single Speed Adaptor

   For those of us looking to die on our bikes, RoadToPista makes a great product to help speed up the process. This is a thing they're selling on eBay to convert a bike with vertical drops to track drops so it can be ran as a single speed.

RoadToPista

   Here is a list of what this will do to your bike:

- 5mm thick part narrows hub from 130 to 120mm (hub has to be re-spaced or frame has to be forced apart)
- Increases steering angle, creating sharper, less stable at speed handling
- Raises BB height slightly
- Pulls rim away from braking area (by lowering rear wheel)
- Increases chance of death 200%

   Here's the set up it comes with: A couple standard bolts and two nylon nuts.

Genuine xeroxed instructions

And a shot of them in action:

   Online opinion of these is pretty mixed - as pointed out on some threads about the product, they look like a death trap. 

CX Nationals Preview

   Valmont Bike Park will be playing host to the 2014 CycloCross National Championships on January 12. This is awesome for so very many reasons, just look at that logo:

Get your CX on

   I went over to check out the early designs and it looks confusing and awesome! Here's a shot of one of the tougher obstacles: a dry creek crossing

MTB is the new CX

   Other obstacles included but not shown:

- The sand pit has a 4' hill in the middle
- They climb the largest of the hills several times
- A long nasty off camber descent of the same horrible hill

   Come on out on the 12th and check out the racing!